Approaching the sky’s limit

On April 26, 1986, a botched-up experiment in a nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power station in the Soviet Ukraine resulted in an explosion and 31 deaths. On November 1, this year in Uttar Pradesh, a boiler blew up unable to take the high pressure inside, and 34 people died.

While Chernobyl became epochal and a symbol of the perils of nuclear power, the boiler explosion at the NTPC plant in Rae Bareli is most likely to be a footnote in the industrial history of the country.

The reason why the first type of accident is taken so seriously and the other so light is simple: people are well sensitised to the long consequences of the first but not the those of the second.

For instance, while major coal mine accidents make it to the news headlines, the fact that people die regularly does not. For instance, 40 people have died in coal mine accidents this year up to August end; 52 died last year. And these are only India figures. Globally, hundreds, if not thousands, die in coal mining accidents. Then, there are fatalities caused due to pollution coming out of coal plants’ chimneys.

Last week, Lancet Countdown, an international research collaboration, (whose Advisory Board’s Chairperson is Christiana Figueres, who was the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC during the Paris Conference of 2015), came out with a report, which showed that 80,368 people died in India due to air pollution attributable to coal fired power plants.

Going a step further, coal plants emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that causes global warming, which in turn causes floods and droughts, killing millions and robbing millions more of their livelihood.

Yet, while nuclear plants meet with stiff opposition (duly or not is another point), coal plants are accepted without a murmur. Ironically, coal still has its champions. Recently, somebody as eminent as Dr Arvind Subramanian, the Chief Economic Advisor to the Centre, called for support to the job-giving coal industry and paring subsidies for renewable energy.

It is against this backdrop, the recently-released Emissions Gap Report (EGR), 2017, of the United Nations Environment Programme makes a crying call for halting coal where it is today. Its insights are valuable lessons for India’s policymakers, such as Dr Subramanian.

In Paris, in December 2015, the entire world agreed todo something urgently to limit global warming to 2 degrees (over the average of the pre-industrialisation times of the mid 19th century) if the planet is to have any future at all. While ‘2 degrees Celsius’ was the target, there was also an “ambition” of 1.5 degrees. Towards these, all countries made some commitments, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), and pledged in Paris to keep their promises.

EGR 2017 says that even if all the countries of the world kept their word, Earth would be hotter by 3 degrees by 2,100, which is a disaster of unimaginable proportions. One of the prime culprits is — coal.

If the planet is to heat up not more than 2 degrees, then only 1,000 Giga tonnes of carbon dioxide can ever be let out into the atmosphere (or, 300 GtCO2 if the ambition of 1.5 degrees is to be met.) This ‘carbon budget’ is essentially the sky’s limit to take abuse. The world is on a trajectory to breaching this limit, says EGR 2017.

EGR 2017 notes that if the climate targets are to be met, then at least 80 per cent of the world’s coal reserves need to remain in the ground.

But what is happening is the opposite. Today, there are 6,683 operating coal-fired power plants in the world, of a total capacity of 1,964 GW. If these plants are run till the end of their lives they would put out 190 Gt of CO2, roughly a fifth of the carbon budget. If that is not bad enough, there are 273 GW of coal fired power plants under construction and another 570 GW on the drawing boards. Ten countries, all but Turkey in Asia, account for 85 per cent of the coal plants planned or under construction. (China alone built 14 GW in the first half of 2017 and has another 145 GW under construction and more in the plans.) If these plants are operated over their life spans (40 years), they would take up another 15 per cent of the available room for carbon.

Furthermore, fossil fuels are still receiving subsidies – $ 300 billion in 2015 – most of which is for oil and gas, but some for coal too. “Comparing actual taxes on coal with the estimated damage to society from air pollution reveals an implicit global subsidy to coal of $2,400 billion in 2015, or $3,100 billion (half of total implicit to all fossil fuels) if the damage to climate is accounted for,” the report says. In this alarming context, the report calls – screams – for urgent action. One of its suggestions is to price carbon, or make the coal users pay for the damage they do to the earth. But recognising that a high carbon price might “not be politically feasible”, it suggests a combination of a low carbon price and other measures such as tight standards and targeted financial instruments such as soft loans to clean power plants. Carbon pricing should render coal plants duly expensive. “Financial institutions worldwide should realise that financing coal is quickly becoming riskier, as these investments would become stranded,” says EGR 2017.

In India, the coal sector employs a million people. Coal royalties account for half the incomes ofChhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. It is not easy to say goodbye to coal. EGR 2017 recognises this problem, without offering specific solutions.

However, the example of China is worth following. The country has created a $15 billion fund to manage unemployment in coal (and steel) sectors. The Centre has collected $9 billion from the coal cess, which feeds the National Clean Energy Fund. However, the money is being used for compensating State governments for any loss in revenues due to the GST — an indication that the Government has not understood the seriousness of climate change.

Between 2013 and 2017, India closed down about 100 GW of coal-based power plants and there are plans to shut down another 37 GW. In a way, India (unlike China) with all its difficulties has played its part arguably well. But the unfortunate fact is, what India is doing and what all the countries are collectively doing is far short of what is necessary. The sky has a limit, which is likely to be breached.

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